Obama Aims to Maximize Black Turnout

By

Amy Chozick

Updated Nov. 4, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Sen. Barack Obama made a final effort to mobilize African-American voters, zeroing in on cities with large populations of registered blacks who haven't cast ballots in recent presidential elections.

"Don't believe for a second this election is over. Don't think for a minute that power concedes," the Illinois Democrat told an audience of more than 9,000 in Jacksonville on Monday. "We have to work like our future depends on it in the next 24 hours, because it does."

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For a campaign that has tended to play down racial strategies, the rallies Monday in Jacksonville; Charlotte, N.C.; and Manassas, Va., underscored the importance it is putting on black turnout.

According to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 88% of African-American voters say they plan to vote for Sen. Obama on Tuesday, compared with 3% for Sen. McCain. But participation among African-Americans has historically been lower than the population as a whole. In 2004, roughly 60% of African-Americans voted, an increase from 2000 but lower than the 67% of white voters and 64% of voters overall who cast ballots, according to Census Bureau data.

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That gap is wider in such states as North Carolina and Virginia, where Democratic presidential candidates haven't been competitive in many years.

Obama adviser Robert Gibbs said the campaign has dedicated its last stops to areas in key states that have "undervoted" in previous elections, no matter what the demographic makeup. He pointed to a Saturday stop in Pueblo, Colo., to motivate that city's large Hispanic population.

"We need to make sure we give people in those places every motivation to vote," he said.

ENLARGE

Sen. Barack Obama campaigns Monday in Jacksonville, Fla., a city with a large population of black voters.
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Cynicism about the political process runs deep in Jacksonville, the seat of Duval County, where 27,000 ballots were disqualified in the disputed 2000 election. Most of those ballots came from predominantly black and Democratic precincts. Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by 537 votes statewide to win the presidency.

"We're not going to let them steal this election from us again," said Carol Bailey, a 52-year-old Obama supporter in Jacksonville. She said she doesn't trust state officials but is "prayed up" that "Republicans' trickery" doesn't work this year.

Steven Schale, Sen. Obama's Florida campaign director, said the emphasis on Jacksonville is based on simple statistics. As many as 70,000 registered blacks in Duval County didn't vote in 2004, according to the Florida Democratic Party.

"We know that if we can close that gap significantly...we can have a nice solid win in Duval County" and capture Florida's 27 electoral votes, Mr. Schale said.

Election Guide

One of the looming questions Tuesday will be whether voters are more reluctant to elect the first black president than polls have suggested. In the final days of the election, Sen. Obama has increased efforts to subtly connect with black voters without alienating whites.

David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said that at this stage in the campaign there is no downside to Sen. Obama's openly courting black voters. Unlike other demographics, "virtually every black voter who votes is going to vote for him," he said. "Right now, the most important thing is getting them to the polls."

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